I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.

- Albert Schweitzer, Missionary

A good traveler is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveler does not know where he came from.

- Lin Yutang, Writer

Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.

- Christopher Columbus, Explorer

Nothing is more revealing than movement.

- Martha Graham, Dancer

If someone listens, or stretches out a hand, or whispers a kind word of encouragement, or attempts to understand a lonely person, extraordinary things begin to happen.

- Loretta Girzartis, Author

In American life, we think we are most free when we don't need anybody. Exactly what Alzheimer's represents is absolute dependency - That's what we all need to learn - how deeply we need one another.

- Stanley Hauerwas, Professor of Theological Ethics

All real living is meeting.

- Martin Buber, Philosopher

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essayist

You can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.

- A. A. Milne, Author (Winnie the Pooh)

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat . . .We must find each other.

- Mother Theresa, Saint

They invented hugs to let people know you love them without saying anything.

- Bil Keane, Cartoonist

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.

- William James, Philosopher

A common language

Umme is a student at Senn High School on Chicago’s far north side, known as one of the most international schools in the country. Children from 60 countries, speaking more than 45 languages, attend the school. Umme herself is from Pakistan; she speaks Urdu as well as English. She was recruited to the Memory Bridge project to be buddies with an Indian woman known as Patel, who speaks no English at all, so that they could communicate in their native language.

There was a slight miscalculation, however. Patel does not speak Urdu, she speaks Hindi, which Umme can understand but not speak, and a language called Gujarati. No worries – at each visit, Patel and Umme keep up a lively conversation using a mish-mosh of languages. Patel does not seem to care that Umme is responding to her in a language she doesn’t know. The meaning is less important than the music, the words less important than the familiarity of Umme’s henna-ed hands, black eyes and open heart.